James Paxton gives up 12 hits and nine runs in Dodgers' blowout loss to Giants

Taylor was one of baseball’s worst hitters for the first two months of the season, batting .095 (eight for 84) with a .305 OPS, one extra-base hit, eight RBIs, 38 strikeouts and nine walks in 36 games through June 6.

But Taylor hit .318 (seven for 22) with a .921 OPS, one homer and a triple over his next nine games and had two hits and a walk in four at-bats Sunday to bump his season average to .154 and his OPS to .511.

“I think with Chris, I see better at-bats,” Roberts said. “I think his swing has leveled out more. It’s more conducive to line drives. He’s not under fastballs as much as he used to be. The swing-and-miss is down. So for me, he’s earning more opportunities, and I’m going to give him more runway at third base.”

What does “runway” mean to Roberts?

“I don’t know what that means,” Roberts said, “but he’s going to play more than he has in the last few weeks.”

Paxton’s start looked more like a crash-landing. He minimized damage after the Giants loaded the bases with no outs in the first on a Jorge Soler double, Austin Slater walk and a Heliot Ramos single, the Giants scoring only once on Chapman’s sacrifice fly.

Paxton gave up two more runs and four hits in the second, an inning that would have been even worse had the Giants not run into an out. Villar led off with a single to shallow right. Nick Ahmed singled to left, and Tyler Fitzgerald flared a hit to right.

San Francisco third base coach Matt Williams waved Villar home, but Villar, who would have scored easily, stopped at third. Ahmed raced around second, thinking Villar would score, and was thrown out at second by cut-off man Freddie Freeman.

Soler lined an RBI double over the head of center fielder Andy Pages, who froze on the ball before breaking back, for a 2-0 lead, and Slater’s sacrifice fly to right made it 3-0.

The Giants pushed the lead to 4-0 in the third when Matos doubled to left-center and took third when Pages fumbled the ball at the wall for an error and Villar lined an RBI double down the right-field line. Bailey and Chapman then capped the five-run fifth with their two-run hits.

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